The 80s Female Detective's Guide to Self-Preservation [Criminal Investigation] - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Xia Sui’s reflexes were sharp. The moment Tan Liu began to speak, she grabbed her pen. Fearing she might startle the fragile girl, Xia Sui even softened her voice to a gentle murmur.

“The ‘prostitution’ you mentioned… did Jin Wu and Zhao Yuanming use force to try and make you do something?”

Before her withdrawal, Tan Liu had stayed in a dormitory; her movements were recorded. Zhao and Jin had only dared to bully her within the school’s confines. Xia Sui deduced that after Tan Liu dropped out, there must have been a period of relative peace—until the intersection of her “paralysis” and her suicide attempt.

Tan Liu was willing to talk, but she remained in a state of hyper-arousal. Her words were scrambled, her body frequently jolting with tremors, followed by long, catatonic silences. Extracting information from her was more grueling than dealing with the most tight-lipped hardened criminal.

If the suspect were sane, Xia Sui would have slammed the table to demand the truth. But Tan Liu was a patient. Professor Wen Yaru had warned that Tan Liu’s condition was born from trauma and an unsafe environment; provoking her would only worsen her illness without yielding a single useful fact.

The interrogation dragged on through the deadlock until midnight of the following day. Only then did Xia Qiuyuan and Xia Sui manage to piece together a coherent timeline from the chaotic fragments of her testimony.

Before dropping out, Tan Liu’s mental state had already begun to fracture. At that time, it manifested as a loss of reality and large gaps in her memory. Her mind would clear slightly when she went home on Fridays, but by Sunday afternoon, as she headed back to school, her emotions would spiral out of her control.

After she returned home, she and her father, Tan He, believed it was the start of a better life. She was literate, able-bodied, and the family had a trade.

One day, Tan He sent her into the city alone. The rules at the state-owned timber mill were more relaxed than before, and he thought a simple pickup of wood for their incense business would be safe.

He didn’t realize that some tragedies are fated. Once you take the wrong turn, you collide head-on with a nightmare.

Jin Wu and Zhao Yuanming hadn’t returned to the village after dropping out. They had stayed in the city. No one knew how they made a living; Liang Chunhua didn’t care what her son was doing, as long as he was a “son.” In her eyes, Zhao Yuanming was always just a child. What “horrible” thing could a child possibly do?

Tan Liu ran into them on the street.

“The moment I saw them, I turned and ran,” Tan Liu said, her voice trembling. She was completely immersed in the memory. She pulled at her restraints, the handcuffs clattering as she lunged forward against the interrogation table.

In the consciousness of “Tan Liu”—who believed herself to be paralyzed—Xia Qiuyuan noticed a subtle physical reaction: her legs actually lifted off the ground as she agitated.

“I begged everyone around me for help, but they ignored me. Jin Wu slapped me right there. He screamed at me, calling me a ‘wasteful wife’ who didn’t stay home to mind the kids but came out to spend money instead.”

“Zhao Yuanming played the ‘good cop.’ He held my arms so I couldn’t run, making it easier for Jin Wu to hit me. He told the crowd it was a domestic dispute—that I stole money from home and neglected our child.”

Tan Liu’s stability shattered again. She began to thrash, her head swinging toward the edge of the metal table. Xia Qiuyuan, fearing she would kill herself right there, vaulted over the desk. She used her hand as a buffer, catching Tan Liu’s head just before impact.

Thud. The force sent a jolt of pain up Xia Qiuyuan’s arm. “Sss—”

Ignoring the throbbing in her hand, Xia Qiuyuan pulled the girl into a firm hold. “It’s okay. Zhao Yuanming and Jin Wu are dead. No one can hurt you now. Just tell us what you remember. It’s okay.”

Tan Liu calmed slightly. Her narrative grew darker as she described being taken to a remote, abandoned building.

“Zhao Yuanming tied me up. He told Jin Wu he was being too rough—that since we were ‘old classmates,’ he should just hit me enough to make me obedient. He said they needed my face to ‘bring in the money.'”

“They wanted to force me to be a prostitute to earn money for them. I begged them to let me go. I told them I could give them money. Jin Wu just hit me again and took what I had.”

Jin Wu had spat in her face, laughing. “I gave that old man of yours face by offering to marry you, and you looked down on me? You think you can run? I want to see who’s faster—your legs or my hands!”

“Since the old man won’t teach me the family trade, his daughter can earn my keep. Honestly, if that idiot Liang Xiangxue hadn’t jumped, the two of you could have worked together to make us rich.”

Zhao Yuanming, smoking nearby, threw his lit cigarette at Jin Wu. “Shut your dog mouth! Why bring up a dead person? Do you have a death wish, talking about bad luck like that?”

Zhao lit another match. “The boss’s operation is getting bigger, but the payout is getting smaller. He’s cheating us. Just grabbing timid girls off the street isn’t making enough anymore.”

“What can we do, Brother Ming?” Jin Wu grumbled. “He’s bigger than us. We used to get hundreds a month; now it’s just dozens. He says the ‘quality’ of the girls we bring in is bad—too much crying, too much trouble.”

“If he doesn’t pay up, we’ll cause trouble at his house,” Zhao sneered through a cloud of smoke. “If he’s short on ‘stock,’ he can send his own wife out. He thinks he can just squeeze us? He’s got another thing coming.”

Tan Liu managed to escape only because they underestimated her. They knew her “cowardice” and the trauma of seeing Liang Xiangxue jump; they never dreamed she would jump from a third-story window.

They left her tied up to go buy food with her stolen money. But in the face of total despair, Tan Liu’s will to survive was absolute.

She used the discarded, still-smoldering cigarette Zhao had thrown at Jin Wu. It was a agonizing process to burn through the rope. Her skin was scorched multiple times, but she didn’t let go. Once free, she found the door locked from the outside.

She jumped.

She hit the dirt and rolled, her body covered in filth. For a moment, she couldn’t feel her legs. But the adrenaline pushed her. She didn’t just walk; she ran. She bypassed the shortcuts and took the main road back to Shangyao Village, running until she reached the only place she felt safe.

Home.